Information just out from the Top Hands meeting, the Scouts are on track for a record number of Scouts to earn their Eagle rank award. Fantastic!

The recent issue of Scouting reported that in 2008 Scouts earned 2.3 million merit badges. The top 10 were all Eagle required, no surprise there. The top one was First Aid (103,503) then Swimming (89,580) and Environmental Science (83,845). Think about how much better a country we are for having this many youth learning these valuable skills! Think how much better we would be if more were learning these skills. Where do the youth of our country get such opportunities? How many men got exposed to their eventual avocation through work on a merit badge? When do we open this up to females too? One of the strengths of this country is that we try to empower everyone. Scouting is part of the solution.